Elli Avram : The Pontian Greek Bollywood Actress

The Pontian Greek actress Elli Avram, real name, Elisabet Avramidou Granlund, has taken a path less trodden from Westerners to find stardom - becoming a Bollywood actress.

She left her birthplace of Sweden at only the age of 21 to move to India to become an actress in Mumbai based film industry, also known as Bollywood. Quite unusual, as most usually search for Hollywood, but not for Granlund, who has adopted the name "Elli Avram" for her Bollywood career.

According to sources, Elli Avram was born on July 29, 1990 in Stockholm to Jannis Avramidis, a Greek musician of Pontic descent and acclaimed Swedish actress Maria Granlund, who played in Ingmar Bergman's Oscar-winning film "Fanny and Alexander."

From a very young age, Granlund was fascinated by Indian music and the colorful clothes in Hindi films.

In fact, Elli even found similarities between the Greek music her father was playing and Indian melodies. By the time she was a teenager, she was buying Hindi movies and immersing herself in the exotic Bollywood magic.

Meanwhile, the young actress was receiving acting lessons from her mother and her aunt, who also runs a theatre. At the age of 17, she joined "Sundbyberg", a Pardesi dance group that primarily performed Bollywood songs.

One year later, she acted in the Swedish movie " Forbjuden Frukt", (Forbidden Fruit) a crime drama in which she playef the lead character's girlfriend.

At the age of 20, Elli appeared on the Swedish TV series " Gomorron Sverige (Good Morning Sweden)".

In the year 2012, she made the bold move of visiting Mumbai with the aim of pursuing an acting career in Bollywood.

She soon managed to get a work visa by signing up with modeling agency. It didn't take long before her face became known, as she starred in several TV commercials. But Elli came to real prominence after participating in the reality TV show "Bigg Boss" in 2013. From then onwards, she became popular amongst Indian people.

Although she didn't speak the language and had the bad Hindi accent, but her dancing skills and stunning looks helped her get parts in the films like "Mickey Virus (2013)", " Kis Kisko Pyaar Karoon (2015)", "Naam Shabana (2017)", " Poster Boys (2017)", "Fraud Saiyaan (2019)", " Paris Paris (2019)".

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